RELATIONSHIP TIPS: Types of partners likely to cheat

Cheating ranks high in the list of causes of break ups in relationships and divorces in marriages. In most break ups and divorces, though, there are always tell-tale signs that a partner is a potential cheat way before they have even strayed. Today, we take a look at the types of partners who are more likely to cheat.

THE LONELY WIFE:

According to a survey conducted by IllicitEncounters.com, a dating website for married people with over 10,000 profiles in UK, lonely but married women are more likely to cheat.

“Your typical cheating woman is not driven by arrogance, ego or lust. They are driven by a sense of loneliness thanks to a lack of satisfaction in her marriage,” reported the survey’s author Christian Grant. “This loneliness is further compounded for housewives who potentially spend hours alone, only to further be neglected when their husbands come home.”

This view is echoed by Nairobi-based psychologist Ken Munyua who observes that irrespective of whether they are financially satisfied, their lack of regular companionship and physical and emotional attention will spur an affair. “Due to their lack of companionship, they might take advantage of their partners’ absence and cheat,” he says.

THE LOW-INCOME WOMAN:

Apparently, poorer women are more likely to cheat compared to their wealthier partners. According to the journal of Evolutionary Biology and Economics of Sexual Behaviour and Infidelity, this is mainly because these women are on the look-out for more financially and genetically well-off men with whom they can move up the social ladder a well as fish out better genes for their children. Additionally, according to Robin Baker, the author of The Science of Sex, such women believe that they have nothing to lose if they are caught.

DISTANCED PARTNERS:

A partner who has been suddenly distanced from their mate – for example by their getting a job abroad – may be more vulnerable to cheating. According to Munyua, this will be highly likely if intimacy was regular. “If he or she was used to regular physical intimacy, she can only hold on for so long before the sexual cravings creep in,” he says. He adds that chances of going hanky panky will dramatically increase if the woman left behind has no kids. “Without kids, she’ll socially have little responsibilities to hold her back, and it will be easier for her to conceptualize that her spouse can’t sustain a dry spell and is cheating or will also cheat as well,” he says.

HEAVY SOCIAL MEDIA USERS:

According to Munyua, the risk here is that heavy social media users are more prone to turning their online engagements into flirtations. “They spend most of their time on social media. They want to make quick friends and chat with as many people as possible. When some chats become regular and flirtatious, the possibility of an affair increases rapidly,” he says.

THE RICH, TALL AND WEALTHY MAN:

These are types of men who believe they have the capacity and wherewithal to sustain an affair as well as get away with it. Additionally, says Grant, these kinds of men will also tend to attract the attention of women deliberately or inadvertently. “This tendency only serves to fuel their ego and make them consider an affair as a plausible option,” he says.